Thursday, April 26, 2012

Feel The Burn?

The burn we can expect to soon be feeling is not the type which results from active exercise, just the opposite. Whenever a society becomes so imbalanced by a super powerful and gluttonous elite ruling over an utterly disaffected and outcast majority, trapped in penury and hopelessness, bereft of any opportunity to improve their situation within the confines of the established process, so much so that they have even given up or have had taken from them the right to meaningfully participate in democratic governance, look out.

That is where we are in New Orleans. It just screams at you when an election for a citywide office draws only twenty-four percent turnout, and the establishment brags about it. The first whiff of smoke escapes from the empty voting booths smoldering with resentment. Democracy turns to ashes in the absence of exercise.